


make the clock reverse

by ScatteredWords



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: (but only briefly) - Freeform, F/F, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:17:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScatteredWords/pseuds/ScatteredWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...bring back what once was mine." Written for a Christmas fic exchange. Prompt: Laura goes back in time and meets Carmilla before she was a vampire. Originally posted on my Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. heal what has been hurt

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Tangled song "Healing Incantation." (I do a lot of song-titled fics, don't I? It's not an intentional theme.) Originally written for Tumblr user aperioncatalyst. Apologies for the German; I'm still learning. Feel free to correct my mistakes.

Laura’s heart leapt into her throat.

There across the quad, sitting on an ornate stone bench, was Carmilla. The long, burgundy dress was a far cry from leather pants, and her dark hair had been elaborately piled on her head. But the face tilted down towards a large book in her lap was unmistakable.

_No. I saw her die._

Part of her mind kept shouting that it couldn’t be; that it was just another dream like the ones that made her jolt awake sobbing every night. Those last moments played on repeat before her eyes: a figure silhouetted against piercing light, diving into its heart with golden blade raised. The light had winked out. Carmilla never emerged.

And yet, maybe two yards from Laura, there she was. Looking as whole and alive- relatively speaking –as ever.

Laura’s messenger bag slipped from her shoulder. She barely noticed. As if in a dream, she took a step toward the bench. Then another, and another. At any moment, she expected to wake up to an empty bed across the room and the now-familiar hollow feeling in her stomach. But she made it across the grassy quad to finally stand before Carmilla.

This was it. The moment Laura had prayed would come. The only thing that mattered.

Carmilla finally seemed to notice the shadow that had fallen across her book. She looked up- your eyes your eyes god they’re beautiful I thought you’d never look at me again –and stared at Laura. A moment passed in silence.

Meeting her gaze, Laura shivered involuntarily. Those brown eyes were…off somehow. Not blank, but not how she remembered them. Something iron in them seemed to have vanished, leaving behind an unusual softness. For a moment, she thought she was looking at a different person.

Carmilla’s brow furrowed as she searched Laura’s face. After what felt like forever, she spoke.

“Wer sind Sie?”

Laura blinked. “Laura,” she replied; “Laura Hollis.” Maybe destroying demonic lights from the dawn of time caused amnesia. That would explain why Carmilla had asked who she was. Still, the question had been like a punch in the stomach.

“Ich kenne keine Laura Hollis,” Carmilla said. But she stuck a ribbon in her book and closed it, full attention on Laura. Who, for her part, tried to push down the fear rising in her mind.

“I don’t know any Laura Hollis.” That wasn’t the most worrying part, though.

Carmilla, who knew English was her first language. Carmilla, who spoke it perfectly and with no discernible accent. Carmilla, who had never spoken German to her after, “Ich bin deine neue Mitbewohnerin, Schatzi” was met with a stumbling and formal reply. She’d listened to LaFontaine rattle off scientific terms in German for practice, and once Laura had caught her chatting with Perry in fluent French. With Laura, though, nothing but English.

A smirk and heavy black boots propped up on the bed. “Don’t want to forget your mother tongue, do you, cupcake?” The memory rose unbidden; Laura pushed it down.

“Um…can we speak English?” she asked, switching to German. Carmilla looked at her like she’d grown a second head.

“English? I don’t know it. My tutor won’t teach me,” she said. “He says it’s useless this far east.” Her heavy skirts swirled as she stood, put her book down, and turned back to Laura.

“But you still haven’t explained how you know me.” She raised an eyebrow and looked so familiar, so like herself again that the hollow in Laura’s stomach ached anew.

Carmilla’s speech was all wrong. It was a German Laura had only read in crumbling books for her Gen Ed literature class, one she could barely understand and speak. And she didn’t know her. Observations whirled in her head, refusing to connect to each other. Archaic German. Not knowing Laura. Not knowing English. The dress. The eyes-

Something nagging at the back of her mind finally broke through. Turning slowly, she looked at the buildings around the quad.

Or rather, the space where buildings should have been.

Lustig, Robespierre, Lovett dining hall- none of the familiar structures remained. Laura stood in an open field, speckled with tiny white flowers. Event eh gentle breeze was strange, somehow lighter and cleaner-smelling than usual. Only the administration building still stood, rising like a castle behind Carmilla.

_Like a castle…_

A bright pennant snapped in the wind above one tower. From somewhere within came the sounds of voices, creaking wood, lowing cattle.

Laura had never realized before that the dean’s fortress of solitude must have once been…well, a real castle. Her mind raced. A theory was slowly falling into place. But it wasn’t possible. Was it?

“Who are you?” she asked quietly, half-afraid of the answer.

Carmilla blinked. “Mircalla Karnstein. Daughter of Count Johann. Where are you from that you do not know us?”

Laura’s heart sank. Carmilla was still dead.

——————————–

The Silas University brochure was a dirty liar.

It waxed poetical about getting a world-class education in a historically and culturally rich region. Not a word about searching for your roommate and digging a vampire’s hair out of the shower drain and falling in love with the same stupid vampire and losing her and losing herself and finding her-not-her in a random time warp just when you’d given up hope.

For the hundredth time, Laura vowed to sue the PR department for false advertising.

Mircalla swept down the corridor beside her, talking a mile a minute. “…commissioned by my father after the battle. Personally I think they got his face all wrong.” She paused. “Laura, are you listening?”

“Hm? Yes! Of course,” Laura said a moment later. Mircalla shot her an appraising look.

“Really? Then pray, what am I talking about?”

Frantically, Laura tried to sort through the archaic German that had been streaming in one ear and out the other for the past hour. “Um…well…” she stalled.

“The tapestry,” Mircalla supplied drily. One hand swept across the woven picture on the wall next to them. “You ask after my life, but don’t attend when I speak. Where are your manners? Do I bore you?”

“No!” Laura said hurriedly. “I’m just…uh…”

Watching you. Watching our happiness. Wondering how much longer you have to be happy.

“…thinking about home.”

“The colonies?” Mircalla’s eyes lit up and she grabbed Laura’s hands. “You must tell me about them. Are they truly full of savages?”

Laura winced at the thought of her First Nations friends hearing that. “They’re not savages. Just people who are different. That doesn’t make them inferior or anything.”

Falling silent, Mircalla started down the hall again. Laura followed.

Finally, “I suppose my life would seem strange to them, too.”

A series of emails from a friend named Mandy flashed through Laura’s mind, from the weekend she’d given a talk at a local Renaissance studies center and gone to an indigenous land rights protest led by her grandmother the next day. She decided to err on the side of caution and not mention it.

“Yeah, probably.”

Carmilla- Mircalla, Mircalla –halted and regarded her curiously. “Is it strange to you, too? Life in New France can’t be anything like this.”

Laura glanced around her. The high ceiling, the golden stone, the slight eternal chill of a draft, the narrow windows with diamond-shaped panes set in lead; everything but the wall hanging was familiar. She’d never been able to take it all in at leisure, though. Mortal peril or overzealous campus tour guides had always gotten in the way. Now, surrounded by lazy opulence instead of professional efficiency, she felt strangely torn.

“I…guess so.”

Mircalla’s eyes widened, and oh that hurt. The girl in front of Laura looked exactly the same: heavy-lidded eyes, full lips, dark brown hair shot with gold in the sunlight. But she was completely different.

“Some of it is like home.”

More than just the old-fashioned gown. More than the unlined eyes not shaded by bangs. Carmilla looked young. Mircalla was young.

“Some of it isn’t.”

Silence stretched between them again. Mircalla twisted her agate ring absently.

“Of course,” she said at last. “That makes perfect sense.”

Then, suddenly, she smiled. “Do you like to read, Laura?”

————————————————-

A universe of books, stretching all the way to the massive room’s vaulted ceiling. Mahogany ladders dotted the shelves, fitted onto brass rails so they could slide from place to place. At regular intervals on the flagstone floor stood claw-footed desks, ready for scholars’ use.

Laura gaped. “It’s huge.”

“The great Karnstein library,” Mircalla said proudly. “Travelers come from the far corners of the Earth to study here. The emperor himself hasn’t one so fine.”

“But books w-are rare!” Laura turned back to her hostess. “This must have cost a fortune!”

“It did. My father places high value on learning. While others expand their lands or build ever-larger schlossen, he chooses instead to purchase new texts for this collection.”

“Do you love him very much?” The words were out before Laura could think to hold them back. She held her breath, and let it out when Mircalla just nodded.

“Yes. He and I are of one mind in almost everything.”

As she traced a finger down the shining leather spine of the nearest book, Laura felt a lump rising in her throat.

Mircalla Karnstein, 18 years old. Younger than her. Looking with hungry eyes at a world of knowledge like it could never sate her. Loving a parent who saw her as more than a chess piece. Untroubled by nightmares or lost love or stolen blood. Human. Happy. Safe.

“There’s to be a ball tonight.”

 **_“When I was eighteen, I attended a ball where I was murdered-”_**

Laura’s head jolted up so quickly that Mircalla took a step back. “Laura? What is it?”

“Um. Nothing. A ball, you said?” Laura asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Yes.” Mircalla put her book down and took a step closer. “I’d be honored if you would attend. I’m certain my parents would like to meet their mysterious guest. That is, if the cousin you’re staying with can spare you for an evening.”

Laura cringed a little at the thought of her hastily-invented lies, but before she had time to do more, memory took her again.

Carmilla’s fingers laced with hers, and a firm but gentle hand at her back. “In 1698, it might as well have been sex.”

“You could borrow a gown, Mircalla continued, eyeing Laura closely from head to toe. “We seem much of a size. And you’ll have left yours with your cousin.”

She leaned closer and glanced from side to side before whispering, “Do women often wear trousers in New France? Truly?”

Laura wiped her palms on her jeans awkwardly. She’d been attracting no small amount of attention since entering the castle, but Mircalla didn’t seem to care. “Yes.”

“All of them? Or are you singular in more than just beauty?”

“I- what?!” Laura spluttered. When she met Mircalla’s eyes, the look in them was pure Carmilla.

“You’re quite lovely,” Mircalla practically purred. “I do hope we’ll be friends.”

“Um.” Laura’s mouth went dry; she backed up and Mircalla stepped forward, almost pinning her against the bookcase. “I think that can happen.” About three hundred years from now.

“Good. Because a beauty who looks at a library like a lover is a friend much to be desired.” Mircalla smiled. “So. The ball?”

With a mental crash, Laura fell back to reality. And it only hurt more when she heard:

“It’s in honor of some lady who’s visiting Baroness Vordenburg. Lillith something.”

Lillith. Lillita. It didn’t take a genius to make the connection. This was the night. This was that ball; this was the end of everything. Mircalla would die and Carmilla would be born.

_I can stop it._

Before she had time to examine that thought more closely, or even at all, Laura heard herself say, “Milady, I would be honored to attend.”

There was the smile again, the one Laura had seen only a few times before losing it forever. The one

“Splendid.” She turned down another row. Over the top of the shelf, her voice floated back to Laura. “And call me Mircalla.”


	2. change the fates' design

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 and last.

Some things could drive even thoughts of half-formed rescue plans out of one’s mind. For Laura, ball gowns were on that list.

The girl in the mirror hadn’t heard of Doctor Who. She hadn’t even heard of television. Cream-colored silk hugged her torso and waist, and flared out over a bell-shaped farthingale. The skirt brushed the floor; the girl in the mirror lifted it slightly to admire the beaded kid slippers beneath. Her light brown hair had been braided and wrapped around her head, held in place with glittering crystal pins.

If not for the feeling of silk against her skin, Laura wouldn’t have connected the reflection with herself.

“You’re a vision,” a voice said behind her. “Like an angel in a dream.” Mircalla appeared next to her in the mirror, wearing a blue velvet gown and an admiring smile.

“I thought simplicity would be best for you,” she continued. “Anything more elaborate would only seem too ostentatious. Your beauty would outshine it.”

“You’re going to inflate my ego if you keep talking like that,” Laura said, chuckling.

Mircalla blinked. “What is an ego?”

 _Stupid. Freud hasn’t even been born yet._ “Um…” Laura cast about for the right words. “…you flatter me?”

A laugh, throaty and deep and achingly familiar. Mircalla tilted her head, the pearls woven through her hair glowing in the candlelight.

“You are entirely worthy of flattery,” she said quietly, her breath warm against Laura’s cheek. Laura let out a ragged sigh.

“Thank you.” She met Mircalla’s gaze in the mirror. “So, let’s go to the ball.”

—————————————–

It went too fast, all of it.

The night seemed like a perfect blur. Entering a ballroom like something out of a fairytale book, all mirrors and light and brightly-garbed dancers. Meeting the count (and countess, a gentle-eyed woman who pulled Mircalla into a tight embrace and seemed as unlike the dean as possible). Being introduced to Mircalla’s fiancé, a tall young man with a great resemblance to Kirsch who seemed utterly uninterested in his betrothed.

“That’s Karl,” Mircalla whispered as she and Laura made their way to the punch bowl. “We’re to be married next year.”

“Do you love him?” Laura asked. Mircalla snorted in response.

“What does love have to do with it? His father owns land my father wants. We needn’t see each other much; he has his friends and his hunts and I have my friends and my library. He doesn’t love me, and I don’t care.”

And before Laura could respond, Mircalla took her hand and whirled her into the dance. A dance which, Laura quickly realized, no-one else was doing. Gasps rose from the crowd around them as they waltzed around the polished marble floor.

Oh, wait. Waltzing.

“Mircalla?” she began.

“Laura, don’t tell me you’re one of those tiresome girls who disapproves of the weller,” Mircalla said, twirling her. “Besides, who could object? We’re both women. It’s not as if we’re spinning about with men.”

“Right,” Laura said slowly. “That would be scandalous.” But the murmurs from around the room seemed to be dying down. When they passed a cluster of old women, Laura heard one of them laugh indulgently and say something about the follies of youth.

And then the dance was over, and Mircalla was saying something about fresh air and leading Laura from the ballroom. In a rush, her mission came back to her. The ball. The murder. This was the night she had to stop from ending the way she knew it would. Stop the assassin, save Mircalla-

 _-and she’ll never really know me._ But she would never be abused by the dean, betrayed by Ell, buried in the coffin, and, ultimately, killed saving Laura. She could live out her days happily, as the girl whose hand was warm in Laura’s as she led her down a passage, out a small door, and onto a tiny balcony.

When she turned to face her and Laura looked into her eyes, she knew there was no choice. If she didn’t act, she’d always know that the age and pain in Carmilla’s gaze was her fault. Because there was nothing but joy in Mircalla’s eyes as she said, “Well? Are you enjoying yourself?”

A lump rose in Laura’s throat, but she managed to say, “Yes. Very much.”

“Good.” Mircalla gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind Laura’s ear and smiled down at her. “Laura, I do so hope we’ll be friends. Already I feel as if I’ve known you my entire life.”

Before she could stop herself, Laura leaned forward and kissed her. She expected to be pushed away or even slapped, but Mircalla just laughed against her lips and deepened the kiss.

“Yes,” she said when they finally broke apart, “we shall be bosom companions indeed.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Laura noticed movement behind the half-open door. A shadowy figure moved in the dim hall beyond. The moonlight caught a glint of steel, and her heart began to race. Now or never.

“Mircalla! Behind you!”

She remembered, too late, that she wasn’t talking to a 334-year-old vampire who could take down assailants with a single, swift blow. But to her surprise, Mircalla turned, yanked open the door, and dealt the man beyond a punch almost worthy of her later self. Her assailant crumpled to the flagstones.

Turning around, Mircalla caught sight of Laura’s face and smirked. It was such a quintessentially Carmilla expression that Laura’s heart twisted. “Why so surprised? You think the daughter of the most unconventional noble family in the empire is a stranger to assassination attempts?” When Laura didn’t speak, she continued, “Why, my life was first in danger when I was scarcely of marrying age. My father has taught me almost from birth how to defend myself.”

As she stared at Laura, her smile faded into an expression of concern. “Oh, Laura. Are you terribly shaken?” She placed her hand on Laura’s cheek. “Dearest, your little heart is wounded. You mustn’t worry so for me.”

“I- I’m fine,” Laura said. “I just…you’re alive, and-”

“And if you hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t be,” Mircalla finished softly. “But you were here. So stop this fretting and we’ll return to the ball.”

 _I did it. I saved her._ Suddenly, Laura found herself sitting down; her knees must have given way, but she hadn’t noticed it happening. Mircalla frowned.

“Perhaps you should rest. I’ll fetch you a drink to steady your nerves. Wait here.” And with that, she was gone.

Laura struggled to catch her breath, to no avail. Spots began to flicker around the edges of her vision; the world spun and blurred. She’d never hyperventilated before, but she began to realize that this was probably not what it felt like. Space seemed to stretch around her, tightening until she thought it would break, and then…

…everything snapped back to normal. She was still on the balcony, but there was moss beneath her hand instead of pristine stone. Looking up at the tower before her, she noticed missing roof slates and grime on the highest window. Voices and laughter filled the night air- and someone’s distant, obnoxious text tone.

Silas University, 2014. She was home.

The walk back to Crowley was something of a blur, Laura’s feet following the familiar path without any help from her racing mind. Students pointed and whispered at her ball gown, overblown and anachronistic here where it had been elegantly simple in the 17th century. Its continuance was the only thing keeping her from writing the whole thing off as a dream or a hallucination.

The hallway. The bulletin board, with Perry’s neon pink and green notice flyers tacked to it. Room 307, with her familiar bed and pillow. And Betty’s neat paisley sheets and alphabetically arranged books, as if the pink leopard-print and yellowed philosophy texts had never been there.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because now, they really had never been there. Carmilla had never seen this room. She’d never kept her blood in the fridge or been tied to Laura’s desk chair. She’d never even been Carmilla. Mircalla Karnstein married Karl and had children and lovers and probably didn’t even remember a strange girl called Laura from New France.

If she’d done something heroic, why did it feel like the world was pulled out from under her?

But she kept it together. Took off the dress and hung it carefully in the wardrobe, showered, settled down to do some last-minute homework.

An hour later, when LaFontaine barged in _(okay, seriously, why is Perry the only one who knocks around here?)_ , she felt almost normal. Almost.

“Hey,” they said breathlessly, “have you seen Perry?”

Laura shook her head. “Sorry, Laf. I’ve been out most of the day.”

“Oh. No worries,” they replied. “I just wanted to ask her about closing procedures for Reading Week.” After a moment of silence, they bit their lip and said, tentatively, “So…how are you holding up?”

“Holding up?”

“Yeah, after…you know…what happened.”

Ringing filled Laura’s ears. Time seemed to stop. _No. No no no no this is not happening._

“With Carmilla and all.”

The tears finally came.

———————————————————————-

“…and I know she was a terrible roommate, but she was my terrible roommate. And she made the big gesture for me.”

“Laura? Um, so, something happened…”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

The first time they kiss, Laura realizes it’s actually the second. And then she can’t think of anything but Carmilla’s lips on hers, and Carmilla’s hands cool against her face.

———————————————————–

At night, though Carmilla swears it’s just Laura's own pulse in her fingertips, Laura imagines she can feel Carmilla’s heartbeat. They lie close together in Laura’s bed, wrapped in each other’s arms.

Carmilla rolls over and looks at Laura’s face. For a moment, they say nothing.

Then, so quietly that Laura isn’t sure she really heard it at first, “My dress is in your wardrobe, cupcake.”

Laura’s eyes widen. “How…”

“Oh, come on,” Carmilla says with a low chuckle. “My memory isn’t that bad. Until now I thought you were just her descendant. Should have known it wouldn’t be that simple in this godforsaken place.”

“Carm, I’m so sorry,” Laura whispers. “I tried.”

“I know. And you couldn’t have known- another man got me, not ten steps down the corridor.” She pulls Laura closer, until her breath tickles Laura’s cheek. “But I’m glad you failed.”

“But-”

“Liebling, I’d go through it all again, happily, if it would still end like this.”

THE END


End file.
